Ibn Battuta

traveller

c. 1304 – 1369 · 65 years · Tangier · Africa

Moroccan who travelled some 120,000 km over 30 years, from West Africa to China, recording it all in his Rihla.

Contemporaries around the world

Dante Alighieri — poet, author of the Divine Comedy, 39 years older
Edward III — king who began the Hundred Years' War and won at Crécy, 8 years younger
Charles IV — emperor who made Prague an imperial capital and issued the Golden Bull, 12 years younger
Philip IV the Fair — king who destroyed the Knights Templar, 36 years older
Petrarch — humanist poet, born the same year
Philip VI — first Valois king, defeated at Crécy, 11 years older

Sergius of Radonezh — saint and abbot, 10 years younger
Ivan Kalita — prince who began the gathering of Russian lands around Moscow, 16 years older
Dmitry Donskoy — Grand Prince of Moscow, 46 years younger
Simeon the Proud — grand prince "of all Rus" who died of the plague, 12 years younger
Ivan II the Fair — grand prince of Moscow, father of Dmitry Donskoy, 22 years younger
Yury of Moscow — first Moscow prince to become grand prince of Vladimir, 23 years older

Timur — emir and conqueror, 32 years younger
Marco Polo — Venetian traveller, 50 years older
Ashikaga Takauji — founder of the Muromachi shogunate who turned on Go-Daigo, 1 year younger
Emperor Go-Daigo — emperor who overthrew the Kamakura shogunate, 16 years older
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu — shogun who reunited the two imperial courts and built Kinkaku-ji, 54 years younger
Gajah Mada — prime minister of Majapahit, 14 years older

1309–1377 Avignon Papacy — aged 5, Europe
1315–1317 Great Famine — aged 11, Europe
1324 Hajj of Mansa Musa — aged 20, Africa
c. 1325 Founding of Tenochtitlan — aged 21, Americas
c. 1327 The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu — aged 23, Africa
1337–1453 Hundred Years' War — aged 33, Europe
c. 1337 Sergius of Radonezh founds his monastery — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
1347–1351 Black Death — aged 43, Europe
1368 Founding of the Ming dynasty — aged 64, Asia